Facing Athens Again - New Encounters with the Modern City

MODERN GREEK STUDIES

SPEAKER: George Sarrinikolaou, The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University

In this seminar, George Sarrinikolaou will reflect on the social developments in Greece since the publication of his book, FACING ATHENS: Encounters with the Modern City (North Point Press, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004).

Sarrinikolaou had written of his native city as a place wracked with sharp class divisions, racism, corruption, and a growing Neo-Nazism. His portrayal of Athens was published just as the city was to host the 2004 Olympics and Greece was to step onto the world stage as a successful and prosperous European nation. But on the streets of Athens, he had discoveted a competition of another sort -- for "money, space, sex, even air."

Now he argues that the global financial crisis of 2008, which resulted in economic catastrophe for Greece, has strengthened, but also institutionalized, and codified the pernicious forces that he first wrote about twenty years ago.

About the Speaker

George Sarrinikolaou is the Executive Director of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University and Assistant Provost for Climate and Sustainability. He has written for the New York Times and has reported for CNN and Public Radio International. He studied at Cornell and Columbia, and worked as a journalist before turning to environmental policy.